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Concordat of 1801

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Concordat of 1801
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Agreement between Napoleon and Pope Pius VII that defined the status of the Roman Catholic Church in France and ended the breach caused by the church reforms of the French Revolution (see Civil Constitution of the Clergy). The Roman Catholic faith was acknowledged as the religion of the majority of the French people but was not proclaimed as the established religion of the state. Napoleon gained the right to nominate bishops, but their offices were conferred by the pope. The government agreed to pay the clergy, but confiscated church property was not restored. The Concordat remained in effect until 1905.

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Columbia Encyclopedia: Concordat of 1801
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Concordat of 1801, agreement between Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII that reestablished the Roman Catholic Church in France. Napoleon took the initiative in negotiating this agreement; he recognized that reconciliation with the church was politic. It would help consolidate his position, end the royalist-clerical rebellion in W France, reunite the clergy, which had been divided since the French Revolution, and win the support of the large majority of peasant-farmers. By its terms Roman Catholicism was recognized as the religion of most French citizens. Archbishops and bishops were to be nominated by the government, but the pope was to confer the office. Parish priests were to be appointed by the bishops, subject to government approval. Confiscated church property, most of which had been sold to private persons, was not to be restored, but the government was to provide adequate support for the clergy. To implement the concordat Napoleon issued (1802) the so-called Organic Articles; these restated the traditional liberties of the Gallican church (see Gallicanism) while increasing Napoleon's control of church activities. The Organic Articles were not agreed to by the pope, and he did not consider them binding. A century later, anticlericalism, intensified by the Dreyfus Affair, led to the imposition of severe restrictions on the church, culminating (1905) in the formal repudiation of the concordat, thereby separating church and state.

Wikipedia: Concordat of 1801
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Leaders of the Catholic Church taking the civil oath required by the Concordat.

The Concordat of 1801 is a reflection of an agreement between Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII that reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church as the majority church of France and restored some of its civil status.

During the French Revolution, the National Assembly had confiscated Church properties and issued the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which made the Church a department of the State, removing it from the authority of the Pope. This caused hostility among the Vendeans towards the change in the relationship between the Catholic Church and the French government. Subsequent laws abolished the traditional Gregorian Calendar and Christian holidays.

While the Concordat restored some ties to the papacy, it was largely in favor of the state; the balance of church-state relations had tilted firmly in Napoleon Bonaparte's favour. As a part of the Concordat, he presented another set of laws called the Organic Articles.

Contents

The main terms of the Concordat of 1801 between France and Pope Pius VII included:

  • A declaration that "Catholicism was the religion of the great majority of the French" but not the official state religion, thus maintaining religious freedom, in particular with respect to Protestants
  • The Papacy had the right to depose bishops, but this made little difference, because the French government still nominated them.
  • The State would pay clerical salaries and the clergy swore an oath of allegiance to the State.
  • The Church gave up all its claims to Church lands that were confiscated after 1790.
  • The Sabbath was reestablished as a "festival", effective Easter Sunday, 18 April 1802. The rest of the French Republican Calendar, which had been abolished, was not replaced by the traditional Gregorian Calendar until 1 January 1806.

The Concordat was abrogated upon the separation of Church and State law in 1905. However, some terms of the Concordat are still in effect in the Alsace-Moselle region, as it was controlled by the German Empire at the time of the law's passage.

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Concordat of 1801".  Read more